"I fell upon this documentary and it is an absolute gem. What makes it so is the five people’s homes that we are invited into. Their homes are — of course — insane, but it’s their happiness and comfort with them that is really the thrill. Again, it’s funny and tender and the filmmakers don’t try to try to be shady with their subjects at all. They just let them speak and their enthusiasm and joy floods over us."

"This seems to me one of the most delicately melancholy and yet vibrantly beautiful films I’ve ever seen. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating, convoluted and yet transparent. The color, fabrics, and décor make me wish I could relocate into a world of low, heavy light, constricting clothing, and dank, long halls even at the expense of my own happiness. I also have to bring up my other favorite Wong Kar-wai film Chungking Express. It’s just as beautiful, but slightly more lighthearted."

"This is actually kind of a curve ball, ’cause I don’t generally like movies that are this dark, but I’m a huge fan of the Todd Solondz film Happiness. That movie’s so f**ked up, but it’s so… I actually really enjoy that movie. That movie is so deeply disturbing but there’s something exuberant and hilarious about it. The laughs are so uncomfortable. That movie just really works for me and I don’t generally like movies where the vision of humanity is that dark and unforgiving."

"Okay, I cheated, but it’s hard not to see these films as of a piece. Two perfectly wrought, drop-dead hilarious films about self-loathing, rage, and clinical depression. When Chas Tenenbaum says, “We’ve had a rough year, Dad,” or Max Fischer tells Herman Blume that his secret to happiness is “going to Rushmore,” the sneaky brilliance of Wes Anderson bubbles up through all the surface whimsy and blows a hole through your heart. If Sturges and Cassavetes had somehow managed to have a love child, it would have been Anderson."